


Airlock

by LycanCoffee



Series: Safe and warm [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Kunk?, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, heheh keiunk, heith if you squint, no actual self-harm, panic attack kinda?, season 3 about?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 20:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15323955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LycanCoffee/pseuds/LycanCoffee
Summary: Keith watches the stars sometimes.He's strong. He works hard. Untouchable. He could take the world down with him, and he tried. He burned forward like a fireball. And then Shiro was gone, and he hadn't grown up yet.He thinks about space sometimes.





	Airlock

**Author's Note:**

> OOF i wrote this at a bad time in me life... why cant i write long stories........  
> If ur just chillin you can start reading the story BUT If you are here because you are also having a rough time,  
> 1\. Hi! I love you!!!!  
> 2\. When I've looked for solace on the internet, people have always said "Get Help." The phrase lost meaning. And it was so intimidating. Talking to your parents is a good idea BUT sometimes you can't, and if you can't, just because that's what everybody says doesn't mean you should give up. There are hotlines and friends and lying to your parents to get you into therapy for different reasons than you actually are going for. Works everytime. (jk). But seriously, you have so many goddamn options. Listen i aint a therapist but im not gonna shut you out. I had to drag myself kicking and screaming in order to get even a little help. Make sure you throw away the trash in your room, drink some water, eat some crackers, take care of yourself. Won't fix you but it will make you less likely to get sick and being sick suuuuucks.  
> heres some crisis chats  
> https://www.imalive.org/  
> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org  
> spicy  
> (spoilers: keith doesn't hurt himself at all in this fic but he has a rough time)

Keith was sitting next to a window, watching stars. Sometimes, there weren't that many you could see, but sometimes, it was a swirling, living pattern of fire and light in inky dark.

 

Keith had lived in places where stars stretched for miles. 

 

He had lived in places where the only lights were helicopters and dust. Here there was no air pollution, no atmosphere. 

 

Sometimes he stared deep into the dark and thought of the slow cold of space. 

 

When he was younger he thought about things he probably wouldn't feel. He thought caterpillars would taste mushy and kind of like watery oatmeal. He thought drinking molten metal would be like drinking really hot water, and then it would solidify in his lungs and he would become part robot by virtue of being made of metal a little bit. 

 

He thought dying out in space, in nothing, would be like falling asleep. It would be cold, then he would lose his breath slowly, and then he would close his eyes. 

 

Keith was tired, and angry, and untrusting. 

 

He was self-sufficient. He knew whatever happened, he would pick himself up, rub dirt on the wound, and learn to fight a little stronger. 

 

He worked hard, and he fought beside his friends, and he looked at stars. It had been his dream to go to space.

He did what he had to do, lived on instinct. He was strong.

This should be fine.

But in the quiet, when his mind still won't stop buzzing, he felt weak.  Barely strong enough to turn away.

 

_

 

One night he was in the kitchen after training. 

He felt hot and sweaty, and he had pushed his wet, gross hair up with a headband and splashed water in his face. 

 

It was dead quiet. 

 

The silence was soft on him but his mind couldn't stop, wouldn't stop moving and hurting and hissing like an angry cat. He was unlovable was hurtful was too angry was ugly was too much was impulsive was disappointing. He was, was, was. He took a deep breath and felt vaguely like throwing something. The rush of air let him pause. When he looked away from the spot he was staring at, he saw a knife on the table.

His mind buzzed. He thought of all the ways he could hurt himself with it. If he knew anything, he knew his way around a knife. Using a knife was all instinct and blood rush, now. 

He could cut, and stab, and chop, and slice, and… it took all his will not to push the knife across the table away from him in a panic, to just leave it where it sat. He rubbed arms while he stared. He looked away.

 

He walked back to his room without anything sharp at all.

 

This trend of thoughts whenever he saw anything sharp wasn't new. He had felt them since he was a little younger, when he was just an angrier teenager than he was now. Those thoughts were often followed by him wondering about the vacuum of space again. Like going asleep. He took another deep breath, like he was trying to remember the ache of air in his lungs. The ache he needed to live.

 

Breathe, and bleed, and live.

_

 

The lion crashed, digging up orange soil in a long streak. Keith grit his teeth until they hurt, biting back a shriek of pain. Worse, he hit pidge’s lion on the way down, sending her spiraling with a yelp. Lance was yelling something about not being rash. 

Keith tasted metal. He stumbled upward roughly, swinging his lion into a soar. He grit his teeth harder and grunted as he came under enemy fire. Stop thinking, he thought. He blasted a few enemy ships away and rammed into another. In the brief opening, he swung back up to fly alongside the other paladins. It's not the right time to think, he thought.

 

The interior of the black lion was full of purple instead of red, and it didn’t move right, didn’t listen to him. In the spaces directly before and after he had to actually lead the team, he felt like a little kid trying on his dad’s clothes. He felt like a little kid almost alone at the funeral.

 

He misfired again. He let out bolt after bolt of energy but so few made contact. He had to scrape every hit and every win out of stone, pushing and pulling and sweating and  _ there,  _ a hit made contact. He grit his teeth again and swung around, feeling the weight of the lion gain momentum and rush in the direction he pushed it to.

_

 

That night he was quiet again, and unbelievably tired. No matter what happened there was a hatred inside him that burned him alive. A train of thought that never left. Worthless, it went. Worthless. Part of it felt like safety. 

 

He was walking. He was tired and he felt like walking. The ship was closing around him, dark and empty and pointless. He wanted to throw up and scream. He wanted to kill something. But he was so tired, he just kept moving. 

He almost passed a gravity lock, but paused. Everything was pointless, pointless, pointless. He bit down on his tongue without thinking and jumped, before cursing to himself, half under his breath. He felt edgy and tired and everything all at once. He ran his tongue over his teeth, not quite scratching himself on the sharper edges. He could taste the metallic tang all over his mouth. 

He turned to the gravity lock. He shook and the world spun. All that was clear was the open button. Was he crying? Had he been crying for a while? He pressed it, entered the room, and pressed the button to close. His heart was pounding but he pressed onward, hovering over the button that would release him into the space around them. The creeping cold. 

Just like sleep. 

 

His face was wet all over now, and probably red. He touched it with his fingers and his skin felt squishy. He reached out to the button, arm outstretched.

 

“Keith?”

 

He froze. He whipped his head toward the source of the noise. Noise at all stung, splintering against his sides in ear-splitting static crunching and grating like metal grinding to a halt.

 

The floor was spinning and he could taste acid in his throat. 

 

Hunk was standing there, on the other side of the glass. His brow was creased. Keith’s arm was still hanging in the air. They looked at each other.

 

“You seemed out of it today. You were…”

He paused. “Clumsy. Impulsive, it felt like. And I know that sounds rude! But that's what it looked like, like, like you were angry about something.”

 

“I wasn't angry,” Keith said. His voice was harsher than he had planned, and too quiet. He winced and swallowed, trying to choke sound back into his throat.

 

Hunk raised an eyebrow. “Ok.”

 

He could already feel a tidal wave of questions knocking him down, could already feel claws trying to work their way under his armor and peeling them back to reveal old, singing wounds.

He flattened his feet against the ground, braced for impact.

 

But words never formed on his lips. They lay flat in soft frown. 

 

Instead, he held out a cake-like object toward keith. 

“I made you a snack. 'Thought you'd be awake. You always are. Training... or something,” there was a long pause. “Besides, I cook when I’m anxious, y’know?” he shrugged at his own joke, lightening the tension for just a moment.

 

But Keith was still holding his arm out toward the button. The air was heavy. Neither person moved at all. Keith’s heart pounded like a drum. His skin itched; unbearably so.

 

“Keith.”

 

It cut through silence like paper on skin. Keith almost jumped.

 

“Come over here, please. I have cake-like food,” He said the last part as an afterthought, softening the sentence a little. Acting like he didn’t know exactly what was happening.

 

Keith looked at the button, looked at his hand, looked at the cake. Another pause.

 

“Keith, please.” 

 

Keith dropped his arm and felt his blood rush. 

 

He started crying again as he fumbled with the open button. He choked on his own breath, almost hyperventilating as he struggled to force the air in and out of his lungs. He crossed over to the other side of the gravity lock, stumbling toward Hunk like a zombie and smushed his teary face against his shirt. Hunk dropped the cake and hugged him as Keith sobbed and shuddered, shivering in phantom cold. The plate crashed to the floor, ceramic and food mush splattered on the ground. It hadn’t mattered, anyway.

 

They stood there for a long time. 

 

When they finally parted, Keith rubbed his face and tried to smile. It came out crooked and forced, unused to the way he had tried to fold his face.

“I'm okay now, it's okay,” he said. His gloves were wet. He focused on that instead.

Hunk didn't seem to really believe him. He frowned a little. “Okay. But I'm not leaving you alone.”

Keith tried to laugh but only choked on his tears. They both knew what could have happened, and neither really trusted Keith not to come back. 

His voice was rough and his breathing was shaky. His eyes were leaking again before he knew it. 

Hunk offered him his hand. Keith took it without saying anything. 

 

They went to the ship’s lounge. Hunk made him sleep on the couch while he leaned against it and stared out the window. At the stars.

 

Keith didn't want to look at the stars, so he lay with his face toward the couch, his back to hunk. 

 

He didn't dream that night, but he slept.

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.imalive.org/  
> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
> 
> I LOVE YOU!! SLEEP!! EAT SOME CHEERIOS!! LOOK AT PICTURES OF FROGS!! WATCH BO BURNHAM!! SCREAM!! STAY HYDRATED!
> 
> edit: i wrote a new chunk but i want someone to beta it, anybody up for that? comment pls !


End file.
